Mis-Heard Lyrics

[joeld]

U2, "Where the Sheeps have no name" always made me laugh. It bugged my wife when I sang it that way.

[guitar george]

Yesterday I phoned a real estate agent about a house to rent. He had a rather heavy accent. I was particularly interested in the basement suite where my son would be living. He said, “There is one bedroom and four bathroom in the basement and you could easily add a kitchen to make a suite”. I asked, “Are there really four bathrooms in the basement?" and he repeated ”Yes four bathroom in the basement!” - as if I’m stupid or hard of hearing or something. We then carried on about the other details of the house. Before hanging up, I had to ask one more time, “Why would they put 4 bathrooms in the basement?” He said “Its not 4 bathrooms in the basement, it's full bathroom in the basement!" (Which means including bathtub)

[dirkronk]

Originally Posted by tinnitus

Just call me angel of the morning, angel
Just brush my teeth before you leave me, baby

Uh oh. I’ve actually heard it that way too. (And long before I could blame geezer-age hearing loss).

[gimme789]

Just then a policeman stepped up to me and asked us said
Please, hey there whoopie cat to all get in line

Just then a policeman stepped up to me and asked us said
Please, hey, would we care to all get in line


I always thought it was Hey There Whoopie Cat in Led Zeps Misty Mountain Hop lol

[tinnitus]

"That devil is freeze dried."

Not a big Springsteen fan beyond a couple quick riffs here and there, I only noticed his more insistent snippets on the radio. Never knew it was really called Tenth Avenue Freeze Out.

[tinnitus]

"Together we can make a baby, on the poor side of town."

[Charmed Life Picks]

Love this. Thanks for bumping this thread, Tin.

sm

[tinnitus]

Originally Posted by joeld

U2, "Where the Sheeps have no name" always made me laugh. It bugged my wife when I sang it that way.

I think that song was on Ewe2's 5th album.

[Silly Moustache]

Ah, the return of the Mondegreen !

See :

https://stacker.com/stories/3387/lyr...ongs-explained

[619TF]

[ewalling]

Sting: 'I'm a pool-hall ace'

from Every Breath you Take

[tinnitus]

Originally Posted by Herb Hunter

I wonder if a tendency to mishear lyrics is an indication of a creative mind.

Probably something to that. But it can also be a side-effect of long-term hearing loss, and years/decades of guessing at what one thinks they might've just heard. "Who beats his son?" "No, Dad, it's to each his own!"

Then, when you mix in funny musical pronunciations, cadences and instruments...

Tom Petty:
"Hey, Hey Hey! (hey, hey, hey) I was Baaarney Rubble."

[Silly Moustache]

Originally Posted by Ozzy the dog

Lucile was a bit naughty - she left four hundred children and a crop in the field.

Was Sheryl Crow advocating dodgy substances when she sang 'If it makes you wappy, it can't be that bad'?

No Ozzy it was a "croc" in that field !

[Silly Moustache]

A mondegreen is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning.
Mondegreens are most often created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to clearly hear a lyric, substitutes words that sound similar and make some kind of sense.

American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term in 1954, writing that as a girl, when her mother read to her from Percy's Reliques, she had misheard the lyric "layd him on the green" in the fourth line of the Scottish ballad "The Bonny Earl of Murray" as "Lady Mondegreen".

"Mondegreen" was included in the 2000 edition of the Random House Webster's College Dictionary, and in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2002. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary added the word in 2008.

In a 1954 essay in Harper's Magazine, Wright (who?) described how, as a young girl, she misheard the last line of the first stanza from the seventeenth-century ballad The Bonnie Earl O' Moray.
She wrote: "When I was a child, my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques, and one of my favorite poems began, as I remember:

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl o' Moray,
And Lady Mondegreen.[4]

The correct fourth line is, "And laid him on the green". Wright explained the need for a new term:

The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original.

(from Wikipedia)

[Charmed Life Picks]

Originally Posted by Cabarone

Y'all know about John Prine's "Happy Enchilada" song, don't you?

Here's an absolutely hilarious -- and extended -- live version of John telling that story. If you haven't heard this before you're gonna love it. Prepare to laugh.